Ja Rule says Alicia Keys’ Clive Davis tribute changed how he views slowing down
He was weighing more family time at 50 before Keys’ story about Davis changed his view of the years ahead.
Ja Rule at Web Summit in 2016. File photo, unrelated to the 2026 interview. Photo by WebSummit / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0. WebSummit · Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic · Resized for display.
Ja Rule said he had been considering slowing down to spend more time with his children and granddaughter before Alicia Keys’ tribute to Clive Davis changed how he thought about his career. The interview appeared in the Jerusalem Post on November 2 and was recapped by AllHipHop the following morning.
His interview describes a shift in perspective, not a retirement date or new-project announcement.
He said Davis’ funeral on June 29 had him thinking about stepping back. Then Keys described Davis starting over at 67 after losing a job and going on to work with her and other artists. “At that moment, I realized I wasn’t done yet,” Ja Rule said, recalling the tribute.
That is not a retirement plan or a new release announcement. In the same interview, Ja Rule said he was still unsure whether he would keep working as hard as before; his children had grown up while he was often on the move, and he wondered how much his granddaughter would see him on the road. He described Keys’ story as changing his perspective, not settling that choice.
